저자: DanIves · 외국인
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AI 수요는 지정학과 무관하게 지속되며 주가 하락은 실수요와 괴리된 과매도다. 에너지 부족이 AI 혁명의 최대 제약이며 중동 전쟁이 3-4주 내 끝나면 영향은 제한적, 장기화되면 큰 변수다. 빅테크 부채 증가와 금리 하락 필요성, 사이버보안(CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Check Point, Palo Alto)에 기회가 있다고 본다.
다듬은 글
I don't think you know, if this is something that's shortened, it doesn't change. Obviously it's prolonged then it becomes a bigger, you know, issue relative to demand.
Look, I think the more immediate Middle East, which is going to be, you know, out really outside of US and China, that was going to be one of the biggest areas in terms of data center builds. UAE, you know, in terms of everything going on in Saudi. Nvidia is going to be a huge player there as well as US tech.
But I just think broadly, it speaks to, look, this is the demand trend that's not stopping based on the geopolitical. But it's a risk-off environment relative to tech. So I would almost view it as much more disconnected relative to what's happening in the stocks versus the actual demand.
We saw that in Nvidia this week, saw that Palantir last week. And I think it continues to be, especially in software, the sell-off here continues to be massively disconnected from what I believe the ultimate narrative will be. That will be the heart and the lungs of the AI revolution.
Hey Dan, great conversation with Karen there. But I just can't help worrying that the math is getting more tricky for a lot of these, if nothing else, the data center providers, the hyperscalers, because the cost of energy is something that was underestimated originally. Now it is fully understood by people who've been following you and others.
The cost of energy for building these, well, the cost of energy globally has just gone through the roof, not just for US consumers and those shipping kit around. It's for the data centers as well. That's going to have an impact, isn't it?
Oh, yeah. Look, it all comes down to: if this is a conflict, a war that ends in, you know, 3-4 weeks, it's something that has a dent, but in the long term doesn't really have a huge impact relative to data center build-out and demand. If it's prolonged into, you know, coming months, spring, summer, then it's really a much different game. You hit on the main point. We've talked about the energy shortage being the biggest constraint for the AI revolution. There are more data centers under construction today than active data centers. That's going to be a boom time for the energy players, but it's also constrained, because big tech is going to have to pay its own bill. That's something the administration has talked about, especially as you continue to see this play out.
Dan, just to pick up on Steve's point: it's not just the energy prices that have gone up, increasing costs for these energy-hungry data centers. The interest rate picture looks like it could be very different from when all of these hyperscalers announced the vast sums they will be investing. How much do you think the possible hike, in some cases, in interest rates could affect the direction of travel with all this?
Yeah, look, a lot of these tech companies have, you put together, about a trillion dollars on the balance sheet. So they don't necessarily need it. Now, if you look at Oracle and others in terms of raising debt, you're going to see more tech companies have to raise debt because of the build-out. So it does speak to this puzzle that's being put together. Ultimately, you need to see lower rates over the coming year. You need to see a better market for tech players in terms of raising money. You don't want to see energy prices go higher, because then you take a step back. $4 trillion is going to be spent on the build-out. Even in tech today, $700 billion, those checks are basically already written, and the multiplier effect is going to continue to play out. So you have almost two worlds playing out in the tech boom: the demand, the fourth industrial revolution, but then the energy shortages and the overall market. It's a white-knuckle moment that we are going through in the tech trade. You see that play out every day.
Dan, we promised to come back to you on some of your calls on cybersecurity. You've got a big conference coming up, and you point out that AI is reshaping the space. How do we need to think about cybersecurity?
Yeah, next week is RSA Security, which will be our biggest cybersecurity conference in the world. Look, it speaks to this massive disconnect between software and cybersecurity, and, we'll call it, AI. There's almost an AI ghost trade going on. When you look at names like CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Check Point, Palo Alto, they are going to play epicenter roles in this AI build, because the threat landscape is going to continue to increase. That's not something that's going to be handled by LLMs and Anthropic and others. In a lot of this white-knuckle moment, there are opportunities. Probably some of the biggest opportunities in software, from a stock perspective, are in cybersecurity. I think there could be a golden opportunity there as that plays out.
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